As far as I knew, Holland was a country famous for two things -- its tulip fields and prostitution. And I suspect, the reason the country is not on the priority list of many Indians - even in Switzerland - for touring is the amazing reputation it seems to have built up as a 'liberal' country. Talk Amsterdam, and most people will conjure up visions of a marijuana smoking hyper free society better avoided than abetted. I myself picturised the city in my mind as one that would be filled with crowded streets and unavoidable unpleasant sights.
It will not be difficult to document here therefore that my keenness to visit the country in the month of April can without much question be ascertained to my keenness to see the tulip blossoms. In fact, I really expected nothing more than this.
Which is why I am still not able to get over the feeling of wanting to kick myself for having gone by popular opinion in forming a judgment about a place I knew little about. Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen in my life. Of course, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Holland is a flat land with half of its area below sea level. But it is not so much about the resources that Holland has, but what its citizens have made of those resources.
As you drive around in Amsterdam, you will see around you wide pedestrian pavements, beside which are nearly four foot wide paths for cyclists. Three lane roads align smoothly beside these paths for smooth motoring by automobile enthusiasts. Team this with a well designed transport network including trams, buses and the metro and you have one of the finest public transport systems ever designed. The Dutch government meanwhile does not ignore the environment, as many of the roads are all tree lined.
One of the most soothing sights in Amsterdam is the canals. The city is full of them, which is why getting a residential apartment with a water view is not out of bounds even in a seemingly middle class neighbourhood. What a dream! How many cities can truly boast of that? It would have been so easy for an overly liberal citizenry to make swamps of these canals, but not so. Amsterdam is a city where the spaces are so wide open that you get the feeling of finally being able to breathe freely, in a truly verdant setting.
If you think you have covered Holland by going to Keukenhof - the tulips village - you are so mistaken. Much depends of course, on the visitor's inclination for coming to a city. But for someone like me who was resigned to accepting the tulip fields as the highlight of the trip, the city's offerings of culture and history were simply mindblowing. Amsterdam is full of museums, and of them the most famous and visit worthy according to me are the Anne Frank museum and the Van Gogh museum -- two glowing tributes to two distinctly colourful personalities. The Anne Frank museum helps you relive the destiny of a 12 year old Jewish girl, as she hides with her family in the secret and dark chambers of her father's erstwhile office, to escape the clutches of an uncompromising Hitlerian regime. Moving through the house -- now converted to a museum -- brings to reality the optimism kept alive by this girl in the few years of their confinement, till fate ruthlessly brings to end their last hopes with a betrayal, separation of the family, confinement in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, disease followed by inevitable death. For sometime after you visit this museum, you simply feel helpless -- all senses forgo you because you just cannot understand the simple question: 'why?'
The Van Gogh museum is an experience in itself. You can watch an exhibition of paintings, but this museum is not only about looking at paintings. An audio tour and careful arrangement of the exhibits ensures that you enter the life of this artist, as the paintings are accompanied by original/copies of the transcripts of his correspondence with his family and colleagues. The styles are explained as also the travels of the master himself in Europe, as he tries to acquaint himself with different styles and materials of his time.
Much to our surprise we found long queues already waiting when we arrived at the museums, and we were lucky that this was the year of the recession else from what we were told the expected visitors to Holland at this time of the year would have been about double the numbers seen by us. Imagine the queues then!
Amsterdam is a bustling city, and its beauty lies in the way it seamlessly merges its culture and history with its modernity. Highrises here don't clutter the skyline, but stand out in glass and concrete amidst a peaceful oasis of greenery and water beds. The Dutch are proud of their city, but can be quite refreshingly self effacing about their progress. Unlike some parts of Europe, language is not a barrier here and the Dutch pride themselves in being multi lingual. French, German, Italian and English speaking guides are available, and it is easy to find one guide switching from French to Dutch to English to German on the trip.
Visiting the museums in Holland gave me the impression that the Dutch do not balk at being brutally honest about their history. No stopping at glowing tributes about their great motherland or fatherland. They acknowledge the excesses committed in Europe in the name of Christianity, and museums like the torture museum give detailed pictures and models of instruments of torture used to extract confessions from dissenting peoples. The Dutch are matter of fact about acknowledging publicly that when it comes to a conflict of religion and economy, it will be the former that will be given a back seat.
I can go on and on about this fascinating city, with its three storey high parking lots dedicated exclusively to bicycles, its ATMs safely located in the middle of the pedestrian pavement instead of against the wall of a bank under an awning, its commercial complexes kept open on Sundays and that too during Easter, its windmills and wooden shoe factories thriving in a modern Amsterdam designed for 2009, and its street performers drawing tourist interest with the sheer novelty of their instruments. I bought a CD from a street performer for Euro 5/-, as passers by stood perplexed and fascinated listening to him play Tantric sounds as if accompanied by a tabla, on what seemed to us like an upturned metal bowl -- not unlike the ones housewives in India use at home to fry puris in.
I won't be fair in ending this travelogue however, if I don't mention the one thing that did not impress me about Amsterdam. The dress sense of the public in general. Coming from Geneva, I guess its not a fair comment to make. Geneva residents are one of the most stylishly dressed populace one can come across. But there is a sloppiness in the dress sense of the people walking the streets of Amsterdam that develops into an eye sore after some time. Men who look like distinguished bankers from the front, end up resembling punk and rock stars once they turn around with their ponytails sitting comfortably on their necks. It will not be fair to blame the Dutch for what could be a trend brought in by the expatriate community, but still, it seemed there was much left to be learnt in this respect.
